Here's How the Shutdown Is Delaying Climate Data and Undercutting Scientists

[muriel_volestrangler]

If you want official numbers on how 2018 ranks in the annals of recent record-breaking temperatures, you’ll have to wait.

One result of the government shutdown, now in its fourth week, is that NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are unable to issue their annual temperature analysis. And, because that data is so widely used, neither can some other governments.

For example, Britain’s national weather and climate monitoring service, the Met Office, publishes its own global temperature estimates that incorporate NOAA data but use a slightly different analytical method. That’s important because when many different analyses show the same trend — in this case, rising global temperatures — it helps give researchers confidence that their work is sound. But, the NOAA data that the Met Office needs is currently offline.
...
They call the interruption of key scientific research, though, a much bigger problem that will have longer lasting repercussions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/climate/government-shutdown-climate-change.html

As the article says, the Japanese figures were not affected, and their preliminary ones for December, and thus the calendar year, are now out:

December 2018 +0.33°C above the 1981-2010 average (+0.71°C above the 20th century average) http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/dec_wld.html
2018 +0.30°C above the 1981-2010 average (+0.66°C above the 20th century average) http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/ann_wld.html

[defacto7]

1. Though not by any fault of scientists or researchers

the US is becoming less reliable. Add that to being a less reliable ally and we're dropping fast. I hope other nations will pick up the slack in the foreseeable future.

[dlk]

2. Could this be Categorized as Part of the Republican War on Science?